Georges Hobé

Georges Hobé, born in Brussels on 7 January 1854 and died in Ixelles on 5 March 1936, was the son of a cabinetmaker; he started out as a decorator and opened a furniture workshop in Brussels in the 1890s. Self-taught as an architect, in 1897 he worked with Paul Hankar, Gustave Serrurier-Bovy and Henry van de Velde on the fitting-out of the colonial exhibition in Tervuren. In the late 1890s he discovered English cottages, which inspired his villas, including his own villa Kykhill in De Panne. He redeveloped the site of the Namur citadel, where the Théâtre de Verdure and the Stade des Jeux, in reinforced concrete, are dated 1910, and built the Middelkerke casino (1913-1914, since demolished) with Albert Van Huffel. Municipal architect of De Panne from 1918, he designed a garden suburb in Veurne in 1921. In 1927 he designed Dr Lauwers's villa in Kortrijk, a thatched cottage showing Art Deco influence.

Translated from the French original.